What's in a Name?
by alwayssmilingsam
Summary: Confused Timothy wonders what to call his dad's new wife


**This is my first Call the Midwife fic - it was going to be part of a larger story but I thought I would post this part fist just to see if anyone likes it before I finish the whole thing - please let me know what you think.**

 **Nothing but the mistakes are mine but oh how I love the Turners!**

"So what do you call her then?" Andrew asked as he and his best mate Timothy Turner sat eating their lunch.

"What do I call who?" Timothy asked, knowing full well exactly who Andrew was talking about. He was trying to buy time because in all honesty he didn't know how to answer him.

"You new wicked step mother of course!"

"She's not wicked! In fact she is lovely!" Timothy defended immediately. "She has a wonderful sense of humour and she is really pretty and she cooks way better than dad. We haven't had fish and chips since they got married."

"I love fish and chips." Andrew said unhelpfully.

"You'd go off them if you had to eat them nearly every night for a year." Timothy informed his friend seriously as he bit into his egg and lettuce sandwich. Another thing that had changed for the better – packed lunches!

"So do you talk to her?" Andrew asked in all seriousness.

"Of course I do!" Timothy was getting very sick of this conversation.

"So how can you talk to her and not call her anything?"

"I just do okay." Timothy said quietly. While the conversation with Andrew was annoying him it was also something that had been playing on his mind. He loved Shelagh – he really did. She was so good to him and his dad. She cooked and cleaned and made sure he had a proper lunch and helped him with his homework and his walking exercises. But she did so much more. Timothy had tried so many times to pinpoint what it was that made Shelagh so special but he couldn't come up with anything.

"She must love your dad a whole lot." Andrew said. "My mum says giving up being a nun to get married is really scandalous and she wouldn't have done it if she didn't really love your dad a whole lot."

Timothy thought about Andrew's words. Shelagh did love his dad. They were _always_ doing mushy stuff and his dad was always smiling and laughing now and he was even making an effort to get home for dinner at reasonable time every night. Shelagh had certainly changed his dad for the better.

Timothy had trouble focussing during his afternoon lessons. What to call Shelagh had been playing on his mind recently and his conversation with Andrew at lunch made him realise that he couldn't spend the rest of his life avoiding calling Shelagh by name. When they were engaged dad always referred to her as 'Aunty' Shelagh but that just didn't seem right. She wasn't his aunty – she was so much more than that. Shelagh didn't seem right either – for some reason it seemed too impersonal like she was just anybody else. But he couldn't call her 'mummy' – that didn't seem right – he had a mummy and she was gone but he didn't want to forget her and he knew Shelagh didn't want to try and replace her.

When Shelagh had first moved in after she and dad had come back from their honeymoon she noticed that he and dad had put away all the photo's of mummy. Shelagh had asked that night where they were. She had made dad get them back out and put them back on display explaining that Marianne was Timothy's mother and she should not be put away in a drawer. Timothy realised that night that Shelagh loved him too – not just his dad.

In fact while Timothy sat there in class he thought about all the ways Shelagh showed him she loved him, it wasn't just packed lunches and cooked dinners – she listened to him. She helped with his exercises and took him to all his doctor's appointments. She listened patiently when he complained about how unfair it was that he got polio. She always found the best books in the library and read with him. The list of ways Shelagh showed him her love were endless. Timothy smiled as the bell finally rang.

Timothy ran out of school as fast as his braced legs would allow, and there she was waiting for him just as she did every day. Timothy smiled when he saw her and walked over to her. "So what are we doing this afternoon mum?"


End file.
